


Of Various Storms and Saints

by grand_adventure_running



Series: Wondrous Creature 'verse [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy and Quynh through the ages, Dragon!Quynh, F/F, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Joe/Nicky come in toward the end jsyk, M/M, Natural Disasters, Origin Story, Quynh is a dragon, Secrets, canon adjacent, in case anyone missed it, mer!Nicky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:18:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28393005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grand_adventure_running/pseuds/grand_adventure_running
Summary: She knows this ancient creature. It’s been in her blood and breath for generations. She doesn’t know what would happen if she were ever to reach for it, wary of its strength, so she leaves it waiting in her dreams and in the silence after her last breath.She and Andromache have traveled decades together and she’s never needed its strength. She can’t imagine what situation would require its aid.She hopes she never has to find out.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Wondrous Creature 'verse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024096
Comments: 6
Kudos: 62





	Of Various Storms and Saints

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Quynh's and Andy's origin story for this 'verse! This is for the people who were curious about Andy's remark at the end of the first installment. No, she wasn't joking. :) 
> 
> Once again, lots of research done for this and I'm using the implied timeline from the movie, so Andy meets Quynh before Lykon. I've also chosen to interpret from the flashback/retelling within the movie about Lykon's death that Joe and Nicky never actually meet Lykon in person.
> 
> Thank you, everyone, for all the kudos and comments! Greatly appreciate it and I hope you all enjoy this one!

Andromache lives and fights for thousands of years before she begins dreaming of Quynh. She fights her way into something next to godhood and for a millennium she believes it. Then, another millennium later, she begins to forget the narrative of her own life. It doesn’t matter, after so much time, where or how her life began. All that matters is the waking up and the getting up again. All that matters is the next fight, the next war. There are so many wars.

For land, life, freedom. For the future and the past. For resources and tradition. She fights for everything and nothing.

She has nothing.

No creed, no tribe, no family.

She has outlived everything and she thinks she will outlive even more.

With the labrys in her hands and a horse beneath her, Andromache is unstoppable. The trick is to never slow down.

Then, one night among innumerable nights, she dreams of a woman she has never seen before. A woman wilder and fiercer than she. Glorious and tempestuous.

Everything changes.

* * *

Quynh’s people are descended from dragons. She can trace her family line back to a dragon king and his union with a goddess. Such lineage would make her royalty, some might think, and it does. Unfortunately for her family, Quynh’s ambitions don’t align with their plans for her. She will not marry. She will not rule.

Let her cousin take her place. Greedy, sharp-fingered woman that she is, she would at least have the passion for leading a nation, which Quynh sorely lacks.

The line of ascension does not flow off-course, her parents tell her.

Despite all the ways Quynh tries to hold firm—learning archery and how to handle a blade, exploring the lush and mountainous north, making companions out of soldiers and horsemen and various tradesmen—nothing prepares her for the way her life truly and irreversibly detracts from course.

One day Quynh rides through the highlands of the northwest, equipped well enough for one of these outings. This is familiar territory and so she does not have her guard up. She is attacked.

An arrow lodges in her side and pushes her from her horse. When her assassin engages her in close combat, she struggles against the pain from the arrow to block the attack. In the end, it’s difficult to say which act kills her: the assassin’s blow, the injuries she sustains in her fall from the mountainside, or the rain-filled gully in which she lands facedown.

She wakes in a tangle of water-logged grass beneath a bent tree, halfway submerged in a creek. She realizes several things all at once: her cousin has finally made her move and dispatched an assassin to kill her, she was killed, she died, and yet now she lives. Given enough time, word will spread of her disappearance. Her horse will either be found or collected as proof of misfortune. She will be presumed dead and, after a period of grieving, her cousin will be announced as the next successor.

She has a way out.

Quynh picks herself up out of the water and leaves.

She travels the countryside hunting and trading to make her way. She takes bounties, hunting thieves and returning oath breakers for judgment. She fights off bandits and helps their victims repair their homes and their farms. This is better work than remaining in the capital city and, though she feels a certain amount of sadness for the family she left behind, she knows her life now is more worthwhile.

She travels into lands she was never before permitted to visit. She travels beyond the boundaries of her family’s sovereignty and into the west.

She dreams of a woman whose pale skin and hard features are utterly unlike her own. Unlike any nation or tribe she’s ever seen. She dreams of a woman relentless in battle, whose solid stance and strength speak to her like a mountain—rough and ragged from an eternity of standing tall.

It is imperative, Quynh believes, to find her. Everything will make sense once they are together.

The way death slides off of her like a shroud.

The storm like a sea churning inside of her since she rose from her first death.

The dreams which leave her achingly alone in the dawn.

Even if it takes years of endless searching, Quynh will find her.

Decades later, as she lies dying in the desert, Andromache finds her first. Quynh smiles and Andromache reaches out a hand to help her up.

* * *

Life with Quynh is thrilling and fast and vivid. Life with Quynh is _more_. She’s the most remarkable human being Andromache has ever met in all of her innumerable years. She’s fearless and principled and unflinching. Together they are unstoppable. Together they win countless battles and end countless wars. They never stop traveling. Quynh is always eager for the next mountain chain, the next sea, the next desert.

Life is easier to endure with Quynh at her side. Death is easier to come back from knowing Quynh is waiting for her.

This woman fights until her breath leaves her and then gets up stronger. Andromache is amazed by it each time. There’s something in her that makes the skies rumble and the air crackle with an oncoming storm. There’s a well of power within her that surges to the fore each time she returns to life. Andromache can feel it in her bones, between her teeth, the spark of static lightning across her skin.

“Quynh!” she calls as the rain pours down on their heads, swiftly turning the dry plain into a slick, muddy tract. The dark sky above feels suddenly oppressive as visibility drastically diminishes.

Andromache’s opponents hesitate as their comrades call out to them from a distance. The conditions are too dangerous now to continue the engagement. Any one of them could as likely slip in the rain and die as fall under the swing of Andromache’s labrys. No sense in losing one’s life to damned bad luck.

Her opponents back away cautiously, smart enough not to take their eyes off her until they’ve achieved a distance out of her range.

“Quynh!” she calls again, because over the roar of rain and wind she can still hear her companion fighting.

Foe fleeing, Andromache turns to find her. A blaze of lightning illuminates the field and in that prolonged flash Andromache sees Quynh…and a shadow of monstrous form looming round her. A horned beast with a sinewy body and curving fins along its scaled back.

It disappears with the lightning.

She hesitates but there is no evidence of the creature’s presence. She doesn’t understand what she’s seen, or if it was there at all.

She hurries toward Quynh, whose sword strikes match the building strength of the storm overhead. She dispatches her foe by opening his throat with her blade. His body falls and his nearby comrades leave his body, fleeing with fearful curses on their tongues. The looks on their faces as they watch their backs, as if they saw something they could not explain…

“Quynh, let’s go!” Andromache shouts.

Quynh tilts her head back and closes her eyes, letting rain slick back her hair and cascade over her. She smiles.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asks.

Andromache breathes out and relaxes her shoulders. There isn’t any danger here now. They should seek shelter and regroup, try tracking those who fled back to their encampment, but the urgency fades more and more as Andromache watches the growing smile on Quynh’s lips.

“Yes,” she agrees.

Quynh glances at her, mischief in her eyes, and sheathes her sword. Laughing, she throws out her arms and spins in circles in the rain, her face lifted toward the sky as if to receive a blessing. Her footsteps never falter. Her arms curve gracefully around her. She dances without care or concern, laughing and singing songs barely discernable over the storm.

She turns toward Andromache and holds out her hands. “Dance with me, Andromache!”

Caught up in her joy, Andromache captures Quynh’s face between her palms and kisses her. Quynh stills, then curls her fingers into Andromache’s tunic and pulls her closer. She presses up into their kiss, soft and fierce in equal measure.

The rain soaks them, but neither of them seem to notice.

* * *

Quynh has a secret.

One that grows stronger the more time passes.

She feels it when they travel near the sea. She feels it in the thunder of far-off storms building over the mountains and in the humidity of freshly fallen rain. She feels it each time she gasps back to life, the burning force in her chest roiling in her blood and singing along the edge of her blade.

She dreams of her first death, of her body breaking on the mountainside, of the water from the flooded gully filling her nose and mouth and lungs. She dreams of something waiting for her in the hazy in-between state as her life fades and death looms. She sees an impression of a form in the mist. Something proud and powerful. A head crowned with antlers. A long, coiled body with gleaming teeth.

She knows this ancient creature. It’s been in her blood and breath for generations. She doesn’t know what would happen if she were ever to reach for it, wary of its strength, so she leaves it waiting in her dreams and in the silence after her last breath.

She and Andromache have traveled decades together and she’s never needed its strength. She can’t imagine what situation would require its aid.

She hopes she never has to find out.

* * *

Centuries pass. They witness the fall of Troy and the establishment of the long-lasting Chou Dynasty in the east. They spend many long decades embroiled in the conflict between Assyrians and Babylonians. They visit the newly founded Rome. They hold the defensive line at Thermopylae against the Persians, fight and die alongside the Leonidas’ three hundred. They see the war through to its conclusion and stay long enough to see former allies, Athens and Sparta, turn against each other for power. They live (and die) through the Plague of Athens, and then they finally withdraw for a few years to the northern coast of Achaea.

Andromache takes short mercenary work while Quynh trains young warriors-to-be. They keep a home together, splitting cooking and laundry duties between them, tending a garden of vegetables and flowers behind their house. It is in these moments, the quieter ones without battle on the horizon, that Quynh wonders if such idyll could last. Could they be content, one day, to put up their blades and arrows and plant roots in one place? Conversely, what if their wandering feet never allowed them to know lasting rest?

She can’t decide which of the two scenarios bothers her more. She tries to puzzle it out.

“We have the entire world to choose from,” Quynh tells Andromache one evening.

Andromache sharpens the blades of her labrys with a whetstone while Quynh fletches arrows.

“How could we choose just one place?” Andromache responds.

“I love this coast,” Quynh says one afternoon as they walk together along the clifftops, “but I don’t think I could live here for long.”

“The Greeks are in constant turmoil,” Andromache agrees. “Though, they are interesting.”

“What if we joined one of the Scythian tribes?” Quynh suggests as they cook supper together. The fish is nearly done. Quynh slices fresh vegetables and herbs and cheese to be mixed together with olive oil.

Meanwhile, Andromache endeavors to create the thin dough for _gastrin_ , a recipe she picked up in Crete. She’s determined to recreate the flaky dessert and has prepared jars of seeds and nuts and honey to flavor it. Quynh privately thinks this will be another mixed success. Luckily, they have figs and pomegranates they can eat later.

Andromache scowls at her dough. “The Scythians?”

“I’m curious,” Quynh replies, “what they’re like now, compared to your childhood then.”

Andromache relinquishes her dough and regards Quynh with a bemused stare. “Would you want to return home now?”

“Of course not. It’s been…” She pauses, then blinks with some surprise. “It’s been five hundred years. More? Yes, more. Seven—no, eight.” She shakes her head. “My home is not there. My people are long ago. I’ve seen how much the world changes in so short a time.”

“Then, you know why I don’t wish to find the tribes.”

“Of course.” She leans toward Andromache and kisses her cheek. “We’ll go elsewhere.”

“What if,” Andromache suggests another time, while watching Quynh’s youths practice drills, “we went north? North and east? Take a direction we haven’t gone before.”

Quynh calls out a correction for one of the boys, who swiftly adjusts his posture. “Perhaps we haven’t finished traveling yet.”

“One day,” Andromache agrees. “After we’ve seen everything we wish to see.”

“And if it takes us centuries?” Quynh asks one night while they lie in bed. She presses herself against Andromache’s warm skin and traces a finger delicately over her stomach.

Andromache’s mouth softens with a smile. Her arm wraps around Quynh’s back, coaxing her closer until Quynh throws one leg over her bare thigh. She combs the fingers of her other hand through Quynh’s silken hair, twining the length around a single finger as she reaches the end.

“There isn’t a better way I would spend them.” Andromache lifts the capture ends of Quynh’s hair and tickles the tip of her nose with them.

She wrinkles her nose and bats Andromache’s hand away.

Chuckling, Andromache says, “Don’t fret, Quynh. Enjoy the time we have now.”

“Maybe the answer isn’t one home, but many,” Quynh acquiesces.

“I would count myself so blessed.”

“We’ve done well with this one, haven’t we?”

Andromache tucks Quynh’s hair behind her ear. Her thumb traces the line of her cheek and rests against her chin. “Any home is perfect so long as I have you to share it with.”

She lifts her head and Quynh meets her in a kiss, warm and lingering. With a playful grin, Andromache catches Quynh around the waist and pulls her on top of herself. Laughing, Quynh braces her knees to either side of her lover. Andromache’s hands curve around her hips. She looks up at Quynh with the devotion of more than eight hundred years in her eyes.

Quynh realizes in that moment that all her concerns for the future mean very little when the most constant thing they have is each other. They can make a home in each other. One house, or a hundred, couldn’t compare.

* * *

The next day they walk hand-in-hand up the coast to the city of Helike. They spend the day in the market and consider some of the mercenary contracts publically posted. Quynh carries a basket full of bread, jars of oil and spices, and a sack of lentils while Andromache enquires about the availability of quality iron weapons with a smith. They overhear news of the Athenian forces gathering and complaints of livestock acting skittish without provocation. As they travel near the temple of Poseidon, Andromache pauses to listen as a small group of people discuss strange events.

“All the rats have fled Helike,” one says. “I’m telling you, I haven’t seen a single one in days.”

“A benevolence of the gods, surely,” another insists.

The first holds up a staying hand. “But the birds have flown, too! Not a songbird or fishing bird in sight. The fishermen are quite disturbed by it. Their nets have gone empty five days in a row.”

“Ill omens,” a third murmurs uneasily. “Perhaps refusing the Ionians was a poor choice.”

“Are you saying refusing them the statue—”

“May have brought Poseidon’s displeasure upon us?” the third finishes. “Yes, indeed, I do say.”

The disbelieving one scoffs. “Had we given them the statue of Poseidon, what then would we have to worship and give offerings? We depend on fair and full seas to feed this city—!”

The third grasps the naysayer’s chiton and drags him closer. “Have you not heard, nor seen, the columns of flame?”

He shrugs off the frantic speaker. “What madness do you speak of? Where are these pillars of flame? If they exist, how is it that the whole city isn’t talking about them?”

“They have been seen! On the coast and in the hills surrounding, I swear it! Poseidon’s wrath stirs!”

Shaking her head, Andromache at last walks away and the arguing fades behind them.

“What do you think, Andromache?” Quynh asks. “It’s true I have yet to see any sign of wild creature traversing the city.”

“An oncoming storm,” she says dismissively. “Animals always seek shelter.”

Quynh casts a speculative glance to the skies above them, which have remained clear and bright for days. She doesn’t feel the stirring within her chest nor the tension in the air of an approaching storm.

“And the flames?”

“The Greeks are known for their strange thinking. They find portents and omens in every single shift and change. I probably would, too, if I believed in their pantheon of mercurial gods.”

They soon forget the conversation and entertain themselves watching matches in the arena. Helike is not a city that boasts overmuch of affluence or resources, nor is it popular or well-known for any particular accomplishments. It does, however, have an arena and plenty of enterprising fighters looking to make coin and prove their worth. Andromache observes with a wry smirk and Quynh has no doubt that the only thing holding her back from giving the fighters a show is the notoriety that would follow.

For now, they have no interest in drawing attention to themselves.

As the sun begins to set, they eat pieces of roasted lamb seasoned with black pepper and dill, purchased from a vendor in the market. At the rate they linger in the city they’ll arrive at their house on the coast after dark. Quynh isn’t bothered by the idea, already planning to take advantage of the nighttime walk to stargaze in the grass with Andromache.

Belatedly, as she thinks about tumbling Andromache to the ground on their walk home, she realizes something feels amiss. It takes several seconds to pinpoint it, aided by the sight of clay pots trembling where they stand and falling from tables and shelves in the market. People search their surroundings with an air of confusion, expecting to see a regiment of mounted soldiers—as nonsensical as the image would be—galloping through the city market.

The ground is shaking beneath their feet.

Deep below them the earth quakes.

In minutes, indescribable chaos descends.

The sea vanishes from the docks, pulling ships from their anchors. The hills around Helike break in two and the inhabitants of the city all watch in stunned silence as the newly broken cliff face seems to stretch far, far above them into the sky.

Screams behind them.

Andromache and Quynh turn toward the sound and see—

A tidal wave as tall as any mountain stretching its long, dark shadow over the city.

Poseidon’s wrath crashes over them and the sea consumes Helike.

* * *

The force of the crashing water throws Andromache off her feet. Before she’s completely taken, she screams Quynh’s name and tries to grab anything rooted to the ground.

Her fingers slip over rock and then she’s lost within the churning wave.

Something collides against her in the water and punches the breath from her lungs.

She opens her eyes but sees nothing but roiling darkness and indistinguishable shapes in the water.

Her lungs burn for air.

She swims but has no hope of knowing if she swims toward or away from the surface.

Consciousness slips away from her.

* * *

Quynh dies in the wave. She doesn’t know how and remembers nothing following the descent of the water upon them. Somewhere between her life slipping away and the totality of death’s darkness, she finds the creature cloaked in mist. This time, however, it’s shrouded in sea foam and hidden in the shadowy depths of the water.

She has at last descended to its realm.

Its long, winding form glides toward her, slipping through the water eel-like. Its bright, glowing eyes meet hers as it bends its antlered head toward her.

Its fanged mouth parts and a roar shakes the entirety of her being. Shakes the sea and the sky until it thunders from everywhere around her.

She thinks of Andromache drowning, lost beneath the ocean, drowning and drowning and—she screams until her voice becomes the dragon’s roar.

Quynh returns to life with the surge of the sea trapped in her chest, powerful and unencumbered by the water’s current. Her eyes see perfectly through the haze of dirt and debris, finding the city below her. The temple of Poseidon is without a roof, its bare pillars standing forlorn. The bronze statue has tilted to one side, but still stands holding its trident aloft.

Bodies stream past her as she flies through the water, but she ignores them. Her powerful body whips its own current. Every shift of the fins along her back and every lash of her tail changes her trajectory.

She twists and curls and turns, seeking…

Her claws tear through the settling silt. Upend crumbled ruins. She smells salt and blood and dirt. Tastes it on the back of her tongue.

The long, feathery whiskers trailing from her muzzle pick up the tiniest trace of movement. She ignores everything that floats by, inanimate.

She roams back and forth over the sunken city. Dives to the sea floor. Rakes back the rock and sand.

In her mind, she pictures Andromache’s body buried beneath the city, crushed by falling dirt. She imagines tearing the entire city apart, stone by stone, digging and digging and never finding her…

She screams, _“Andromache!”_ and the sound of her cry ripples through the water, buffeting the falling dirt as it settles.

She stills herself despite the desperate storm welling up inside of her and extends her new senses to their limits.

She waits.

And waits.

Something thrashes in the water to her right. Something alive. The only thing still alive amidst catastrophic tragedy.

She darts through the water, honing in on the movement, and swiftly she spies Andromache—her precious Andromache—pinned beneath a collapsed pillar. She struggles beneath a heavy section of stone, feet kicking and sliding against the broken ground.

Quynh crashes against the ground just as Andromache’s fight begins to fail. She pushes her body against the stone, claws scraping for purchase. Slowly, it shifts and rolls away.

She meets Andromache’s gaze just as her eyes turn vacant and her body goes slack. Quynh scoops one of her clawed hands beneath Andromache’s body and holds her against the barrel of her scaled chest.

Whirling, she lunges for the surface.

She emerges from the sea and climbs up from the beach, avoiding the terrible wound in the cliff face where Helike once sat, and awkwardly carries Andromache to the top of the hill. She lays her in the grass and curls around her body.

Night has fallen. The stars glimmer above them in the endless black. Quynh rests her head beside Andromache’s and waits for life to return to her.

When it does, when Andromache takes her first gasping breath, Quynh lies motionless and watches her carefully. Her dear Andromache left her labrys stowed safely in their home, but even weaponless Andromache is formidable. Quynh is hard pressed to wonder what possible damage could be wrought against her in this form, but nonetheless she hopes to avoid confrontation.

She hopes Andromache won’t be fearful.

She couldn’t bear it if Andromache recoiled from her in the face of this secret laid bare at last, several hundred years later.

Andromache notices her immediately—and of course she would. Quynh has circled her completely. She turns her head slowly and stares at Quynh, wide-eyed. She sits up suddenly and looks around herself, discovering the barrier Quynh has made of her body.

She regards Quynh warily. “I saw you in the water. You saved me.”

She gets slowly to her feet and turns in a small circle. Even lying down, the top of Quynh’s back reaches Andromache’s waist. Her legs are not very long, however. Standing, she might match the girth and height of a draft horse from the north, but she’s many times longer than one. She might even be longer than a fishing boat.

Quynh lifts her head as Andromache steps closer, meeting her curious gaze. There’s no fear in her Andromache. Of course not. When has the mountain ever faltered before a storm?

“Quynh,” she says, certain.

_“Andromache,”_ she whispers, but a throaty chuff escapes her instead.

The corner of Andromache’s mouth quirks upward. “I thought I’d seen most things this world has to offer, but clearly I was wrong about that.”

A rough, husky sounds vibrates in Quynh’s throat, something like a purr if dragons are capable of such a thing.

Andromache raises a hand and sets it gently on the crown of Quynh’s head, reaching bravely past the branching antlers.

“How is this possible?” she asks softly. Her hand slides into the silky mane ringing Quynh’s head and jaw. “Will you come back to me so I can hold you again?”

Quynh desires that so suddenly and so fervently that the ache of her wanting overpowers the storm in her blood. All at once, as if a swift wind has blown away the clouds, the dragon-self slips away from her and leaves her, damp and naked, kneeling in the grass before her beloved.

Andromache falls to her knees and pulls Quynh into a desperate embrace. “When I first dreamed of you I knew you were special.”

Quynh leans into Andromache and closes her eyes, overwhelmed by an altogether different storm. “I was so afraid I had lost you. I had to do everything I could to find you.”

“As would I,” Andromache says. She grasps Quynh’s arms and pulls her back, looks at her with relief and a growing smile. “Although, I don’t think I could possibly turn into a dragon.”

“No?” Quynh laughs. “You couldn’t turn into a dragon?”

Her laughing abruptly turns into a shiver. Andromache frowns and unwraps her himation which has, miraculously, remained fastened over her shoulder and around her waist. She drapes it around Quynh. They are the both of them completely soaked, but the cloak at least serves as a barrier from the night air on her chilled skin.

“Let’s go home,” Andromache suggests.

“Yes, please,” Quynh sighs.

Andromache helps her to her feet and steadies her when her balance wavers. She is suddenly and incredibly exhausted. She leans against Andromache as they walk and they both stop when they see, fully for first the time, the new empty space in the land where Helike once was. Now, there is nothing but pale rock and dark water.

“How could this have happened?” Quynh asks.

“Malicious gods, if the Greeks are to be believed.”

“And what do you believe?”

Andromache rubs her hand against Quynh’s shoulder. “I believe today is proof that I don’t understand all of this world’s mysteries. I’ve seen a column of wind tear a forest up by the roots. I’ve seen mountains spouting fire. Now I’ve seen the ocean swallow a city whole. I’ve seen a creature of legend transform into the woman I’ve loved for centuries. Our immortality doesn’t seem so strange after all of that.”

“I didn’t want to keep it a secret from you,” she says suddenly. “I just… I had no plan for it, not in all the time I’ve known you. I didn’t know what it would do if I accepted its power. I thought, maybe I would never need it and I wouldn’t have to find out.”

“Were you afraid of it?” Andromache asks softly.

“I was afraid that our life would not be the same again. I’ve come this far without it. It made itself known to me after my first death and it has been within me ever since. Waiting for me.”

“You accepted it despite your misgivings so you could save me.”

“If that is what I must do, then I always will.”

* * *

They find Lykon a few decades later, another mystery unfolding.

He dies his first death in the Battle of Granicus and they dream of him for weeks, for months, until they at last find him. He dreams of them, too, just as Andromache had dreamed of Quynh until they found one another.

Lykon is a wolf seeking a pack and he makes one out of the three of them. He teaches them how to be a family, how to open their hearts to more. Andromache and Quynh have been together for so long they began thinking there would only ever be each other.

Lykon teaches them there can be more immortals, given time, and time they have enough to spare.

Family—Lykon is the missing piece they didn’t know they needed. He balances them, steadies them. He makes their campfires brighter, makes the warm afternoons sweeter with singing, and shortens their long travels with countless stories about the family he was forced to leave behind as his years grow longer and longer.

He becomes their brother and they his sisters. 

Lykon teaches them one more thing.

All things end. Even them.

* * *

Andromache wakes gasping from a dream. Beside her, Quynh does the same and reaches for her arm. Heart pounding, she sits up and still sees the flashes of the dream behind her eyes.

A man of the Fatimid army clasping a curved sword in both hands, bringing it to bear on his enemy.

The wildness in his eyes as he met his death unflinching.

The broadsword that pierces his armor and slides through his abdomen.

He thinks of his family in that moment—too many faces flickering too quickly for her to see clearly.

Jerusalem bleeds.

“ _No_ ,” she shouts. Shakes her head. “No, not another. I can’t accept another, Quynh.”

“Two,” Quynh whispers.

Andromache’s pounding heart skips a beat. She stares into Quynh’s dazed expression.

“There are two.”

She takes a deep breath and feels something settle within her. “Then they have each other,” she says flatly.

Quynh’s brows gather into a frown. “Andromache…”

“Let’s see how long they last first,” she snaps and hauls herself out of their bed.

She dresses swiftly, ignoring Quynh’s heavy silence, and leaves their bedroom. She stamps her feet into her boots, yanks on her woolen coat, and grabs her labrys from its pegs. She steps out into the frost-bitten north and strides into the woods surrounding their home.

If she unleashes her grief on the pines, no one but the silent trees will know.

Hours later, she returns to a fire-heated house and a bubbling stew hanging over it. Quynh looks up from her mending with an expression Andromache knows well. She’s displeased, but understanding. What she does next will depend on how Andromache tries to resolve the situation.

“We keep our distance—for now. Let them find their footing. They won’t be alone, that will help. Then…we’ll see.”

Quynh tips her head and makes another stitch.

Knowing she hasn’t escaped Quynh’s rebuttal, Andromache busies herself with stowing the labrys and hanging her coat to dry while Quynh thinks. Just as she retrieves two bowls and begins ladling the stew, Quynh speaks.

“I know that losing Lykon hurt you because it hurt me, as well.”

Andromache stills, staring blankly at the bowl in her hand.

“After all he did for us, we would spurn his memory by refusing these men.”

She sighs and finishes filling the bowls. She lays the ladle aside and fetches two spoons. She passes a bowl to Quynh, who drops her mending into her lap. Andromache perches on the edge of the second seat and digs her spoon into her meal.

“Their immortality doesn’t make them family, Quynh.”

“We can’t treat them any differently than we treated Lykon. We were _overjoyed_ —”

“Yes, and look at the pain it wrought. We know better now. This…isn’t eternal the way we thought it was. They will end one day. And we will, too.”

“In the meantime, we will have millennia.”

“You don’t know that,” she says hoarsely.

Softly, Quynh says, “I would still choose one more year with you, even if it was the only one I would have, over none at all and I would endure centuries more without you, knowing I had spent all my best days with you.”

“Quynh…”

“One hundred years,” she agrees, “to see what they will do.” She smiles. “Who knows, they may try to find us instead.”

* * *

It doesn’t come to that. Nicolò and Yusuf are, at first and for a number of weeks, more focused on killing each other than paying attention to any possible dreams they may have of Andromache and Quynh. Then, when they set aside the endeavor of delivering a lasting death to the other, they focus on the war raging around them. They focus on the innocents caught in the middle and staying one step ahead of the Frankish army.

Quynh and Andromache leave them to their war. They understand implicitly that this is something the two must settle in their hearts, together and alone.

They rushed in with Lykon and it worked out in their favor—their warrior brother was entirely alone in his new immortal life, contending with a battle that both had and had not killed him and also the question of what to do about his family. It was a hard thing for Lykon to let go, knowing that he would outlive his many loved ones. Easier to let them think he _had_ perished in the battle at Granicus. Harder, though, for him to move on. He needed them to make that transition and they naturally fell in together as a trio.

Quynh misses the sound of his laughter.

Nicolò and Yusuf, however, have the support of each other. Slain by the other’s hand, even. It feels like Greek poetry—a remark which makes Andromache snort.

The dreams come sporadically and in flashes. They don’t always make sense, but Quynh can glean enough to understand roughly what the two have been doing.

This is what she sees:

Boats in a harbor, soldiers patrolling with bows in hand.

Black smoke rising in the distance, another village lost.

Yusuf, teeth bared in a grimace in the midst of battle, sweat and blood shining on his face. He delivers another blow.

Nicolò’s pale, intense eyes watching a regiment of soldiers moving into the valley. He counts them quickly and departs down from the ridge.

A campfire with cooking meat spitted on crooked sticks and the stars overhead. They sit side-by-side. The distance between them has shrunk again. Nicolò draws something in the dirt between them with his fingers. Quynh thinks he is imparting information or creating a plan. Yusuf catches his hand and holds it while he draws something with his free hand. He guides Nicolò’s hand in the same shape, teaching him, but Nicolò no longer watches Yusuf’s movements. Instead, he gazes upon Yusuf’s face and traces the shape of him with his eyes.

In her next dream, she finds that Yusuf also watches Nicolò when he thinks the other man won’t notice. She wakes from that one with irrepressible happiness in her heart, which carries her through the day as if walking on air.

Andromache notices. “What has gotten into you that the smell of all these sheep can’t spoil?”

Quynh laughs. They’re helping move a herd of sheep through the mountains—it’s not so simple an undertaking as it might sound, and Andromache has thoroughly exhausted her patience for livestock.

“Have you not noticed something changing between them?”

“Who?” Then, as she realizes, “Oh. Your western men.”

“ _Our_ western men,” Quynh insists.

Andromache makes an obstinate face. Quynh loves her, but this woman lives to challenge her. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Not yet,” Andromache mumbles and coaxes a sheep back to the group with her staff. Louder, she says, “I don’t dream of them as often as you do.”

“Because they can tell you don’t like them,” Quynh goads. She makes a scrunched-up face at her.

Andromache points a stern finger at her. Then, softening with a laugh, she adds, “I don’t think they can tell much with their eyes fastened on each other.”

“You have noticed!”

“If they’re not fighting, they’re writing poetry to each other with their eyes.” Andromache widens hers for effect.

“Not Greek poetry, do you think?”

“Remains to be seen.”

Quynh dashes off to catch an errant lamb and the ewe who stopped to wait for it. When she returns, she says, “I think it’s wonderful.”

Andromache glances at the lamb in Quynh’s arms.

“No!” She sets the lamb on its feet and swiftly the ewe gathers it to her side. “Yusuf and Nicolò! I think it’s wonderful that they met on opposite sides of a battlefield and now they wish to be on the same side of a campfire together. Romantic, don’t you think?”

“They wish to be inside each other’s clothes, more like,” Andromache retorts.

“Lech.”

She grins unapologetically.

After a little while, Quynh says, “I hope I don’t have any dreams of that, if they do.”

“When they do,” Andromache interrupts. “And, yes, I hope the same.”

Her eyes widen. “Do you think they had dreams of us, like that?”

“Dearest, I don’t think they would notice even if they have. Men are single-minded. These, especially.”

Quynh hums. “I look forward to meeting them.”

Andromache doesn’t respond vocally, but she tips her head and her expression remains amicable. It’s enough. Quynh smiles privately and then scolds one of the sheep back into the group, tapping its rump with her staff.

Budding romance aside, there’s something else Quynh sees in her dreams. Something very curious and familiar to her.

She dreams of Nicolò more frequently than Yusuf, and in those dreams there is a recurring theme. It takes her a while to notice it, as the dreams themselves are unpredictable. She once dreamed of the two men three times in one month and then not again for another five years. Typically, the content of the dreams is more plentiful when they occur with a significant amount of time between them. She sees more and so notices more.

What she notices is this: there is always water in Nicolò’s dreams. The sea behind them. A harbor. The remarkable rain shower on a dry afternoon. A waterskin in hand. A small oasis in the desert. The sound of the ocean at night from the deck of a ship. A bucket drawn from a well.

It’s a curious thing, because she knows rationally that Nicolò cannot perpetually be in the presence of water, not in the environment he and Yusuf travel. Nevertheless, it is always there. In the background. In a flash. In Nicolò’s own memory.

She begins to feel in him a kinship that she does not share with Yusuf, nor even with Andromache.

It brings to her the conclusion that Nicolò is not what he seems, though she never spies physical evidence of it.

He is hiding, just as Quynh concealed her truth, and it would seem that the only place he cannot conceal it completely is within his dreams.

Once, she tried reaching for him in the same way she reaches for her dragon self, but the dream immediately dissolved. She debates informing Andromache and eventually decides that she will safeguard his secret until either Andromache figures it out or until Nicolò shares it.

Someday, there will be a day Nicolò stops hiding and Quynh looks forward to it with unparalleled anticipation.

* * *

One hundred years pass. Yusuf and Nicolò spend most of that time fighting against a war that will stretch out over centuries. Andromache has seen the like before. Despite that, they are still together, still living and dying and healing.

Healing—she has done some of that herself.

When they glimpse the two traveling, at last, in a vague trajectory northeast, Andromache and Quynh go to meet them. Quynh’s enduring excitement is palpable and Andromache lets herself feel it, too. Yusuf and Nicolò skirt the deserts and travel northward through the mountains. They glimpse them on a boat, at sea, and Andromache recognizes the shores and the waters of the Caspian—the only sea large enough they could cross from end to end and still travel northeastward.

Andromache and Quynh arrive at its shores some days later. It’s difficult to tell if they have missed Yusuf and Nicolò, or if they have arrived early—at least, it was difficult until the moment they are drawn by the sounds of a fight.

The rocky shoreline hides the altercation from view until Andromache and Quynh climb the rise and look down at the water. Six men grapple in the shallows of the beach and a moment’s observation reveals two men each are fighting Yusuf and Nicolò. Having seen their fighting prowess, Andromache would not normally be alarmed by the odds, but something clearly has gone wrong. The two men fighting Yusuf have him mostly restrained and knelt in the sand. Blood streams down his face from a head wound. Meanwhile, Nicky is thrashing in the water where he’s been pinned on his stomach by a man straddling his back. The other attempts to grab his…legs.

There’s something odd about that, but Andromache doesn’t devote any more time to figuring that out—the man on Nicolò’s back is twisting a length of rope around his throat.

Andromache knows instantly that these strangers will die—not because the odds have swiftly changed with their arrival, or because Andromache could have handled all four men on her own, but because Quynh decides the situation warrants a dramatic and terrifying entrance.

She’s aware of a sudden sea breeze rushing past her as she swiftly descends the rocks and then Quynh’s fearsome dragon-self leaps forward, clearing the distance in a single bound. She’s the color of a storm at sea—all shades of gray and silver decorating her underside while glimmering oceanic blues paint her back. Her claws strike as lightning does, devastating as they land on mortal ground. If her sudden appearance or her rapid dispatching of her first foe doesn’t send the men scrambling in terror, then her rattling roar does.

Andromache’s boots touch the sand just as Quynh pounces on the bastard that flew to his feet and abandoned Nicolò in the water with the rope still around his neck. She moves to assist him, knowing Quynh will have the matter settled in a matter of seconds—or minutes, if she prefers to drag it out a little longer.

Yusuf, staggering to his feet, eyes wide as he pauses to take in the reality of Quynh’s deadly form, still manages to reach Nicolò’s limp form moments before Andromache. He kneels in the water and works quickly to unwind the rope, all the while speaking in a language Andromache recognizes from the desert-strewn southwest.

“Nicolò,” he says, “wake, my love. Open your eyes and look upon me once more. Nicolò!”

As Andromache comes closer, she realizes what seemed odd from a distance: in place of legs, Nicolò bears a scaled fish tail. Long and elegant. No doubt as powerful as a lash from Quynh’s long tail. She has never seen him like this in any dream and she suspects, somehow, that was no coincidence.

Yusuf darts a look at her as she kneels in the sand opposite him. His eyes are warning, but not mistrustful. He recognizes her, but he doesn’t know what she will do, how she will react.

“Do you need help with him?” she asks in his language, respectfully keeping her hands in plain view on her knees.

Yusuf’s hands cover Nicolò’s abused throat. Andromache isn’t sure the unconscious man is even breathing. He might have already suffocated, in which case the only thing they can do is wait.

“The rope crushed his throat. His gills, too.”

Yusuf’s fingers gently examine the area and only now does Andromache see the interruptions in the flesh—three small crescent-shaped places where the internal structures have collapsed inward. The outer covering of one has been torn at one end, the free edge crumpled and rucked up by the path of the rope.

“Is he still alive?”

“Yes,” he says. “I can feel his pulse beneath my thumb. He is not breathing. I should—deeper into the water—would you…?”

“Yes, of course.”

Yusuf wraps his arms around Nicolò’s chest and Andromache wedges an arm beneath his hips. His aquatic body is slick and smooth beneath her hands, his scales much finer and smaller than Quynh’s hard, armored ones. They wade into the water with him until the waves lap around their waists. Yusuf walks slowly with him, letting the water sluice over Nicolò’s gills. If they still function, then he should be able to get some measure of breath that way.

Either Nicolò will heal in time, or suffocation will take him. Even knowing he would come back, Andromache still hopes it doesn’t come to that. She watches the way Yusuf attends to him, how he holds him, how his eyes never leave Nicolò’s face, and hopes for his sake that the number of times he must hold his dead lover are very far and few between.

The feeling of Quynh’s lifeless body lying still in Andromache’s arms never fades quickly enough. Her love is so dynamic, so full of energy and strength and playfulness—death completely strips it away. Turns Quynh nearly unrecognizable in those long, dreadful minutes it takes for her body to heal and fill back up with life.

So, Andromache sympathizes.

And Lykon—

She blinks back the memories. Focuses instead on the sleek, heavy length of Nicolò’s tail in her hands. On Yusuf murmuring something that sounds like prayers. On the gentle way his fingers touch Nicolò’s cheek beneath the water.

She’s ready for this, she reminds herself. She’s ready to bring others into her heart and into her family, into her protection.

She looks away for an instant, to check on Quynh’s location, and that is the moment Nicolò thrashes back to vigorous consciousness. Her arms are suddenly knocked away and the force of his kick sends her staggering backward in the water with a surprised gasp.

Yusuf lets him go, allowing him to dart away from his immediate reach, but then he also fully submerges himself in the waist-high water. Putting himself within easy view and accessibility to Nicolò once he calms enough to understand his surroundings.

Andromache watches curiously. Yusuf’s reaction, she surmises, is a learned one. She might have instinctually held tighter in his place, but then she imagines how easily Nicolò could have knocked her off her feet, drowned her, and reconsiders.

In all the time that Andromache has known about Quynh’s dragon-self, they have yet to find themselves in a situation like Yusuf’s and Nicolò’s. Quynh, out of cautious habit, does not often reveal herself. Doing so, they have learned, also means containing the situation. No witnesses, such as in this case. In her dragon form she has yet to come up against any weapon that could pierce through her scales. The occasional arrow has gotten lodged in one or two, but most blades slide away. Quynh has sustained crushed scales and, painful though they are, they’re not lethal.

Apparently, and quite understandably, Nicolò has more vulnerabilities than a dragon.

She spies him swimming back to Yusuf, the both of them surfacing, and decides to give them a moment unobserved. She wades out of the water and looks down the beach at Quynh, who has left a mess of blood staining the sand. The bodies are scattered where they lie in their final resting place.

It will be hard for anyone who comes upon them to rationalize an animal attack with the kind of widespread damage a dragon’s claws and teeth leave behind. A tiger is the closest comparison they can devise and there is a scarce supply of large felines in these lands. A bear, perhaps at a stretch.

Since they won’t be sticking around it won’t matter in the end, but Andromache always considers the evidence they leave behind.

Quynh ambles toward her with all the indolence of a tiger after a successful hunt, head held regally high and tail swinging lazily behind her.

“Was that necessary?” Andromache asks her.

She has, at least, done the polite thing and rinsed herself of blood before she rests her muzzle directly on top of Andromache’s head. Her long whiskers trail over Andromache’s shoulder. She rumbles a satisfied noise in her chest.

“We’re all lucky that no one traveling by was around to catch sight of you.”

She snorts and her breath rolls down Andromache’s back. Then, as if suddenly remembering, Quynh picks up her head and peers over at their new pair of immortals. She makes another rumbly sound that Andromache interprets as a query.

She reaches up to pat Qunyh’s long neck. “They’re all right. Nicolò was hurt, but he didn’t die. Would you like to change so we can go over and introduce ourselves?”

Quynh sniffs dismissively and makes her way over to the men, who now sit on the beach together. Andromache follows, catching up to walk at Quynh’s shoulder.

Nicolò has regained his legs and is currently clothed in the long coat Yusuf wore. He watches them with a scrutiny that could border on wariness if not for his relaxed posture and the distinct look of awe directed at Quynh, who lies down in the sand and curls her tail toward the two.

Andromache crouches beside her. “Yusuf,” she acknowledges. “Nicolò.”

“Andromache,” Yusuf returns with a nod.

“Quynh,” Nicolò says softly. There’s something in his demeanor—recognition, maybe—that marks this interaction as an important moment. He speaks in a trade tongue common in this part of the world, “I have looked forward to meeting you. In my dreams of you, I could always feel the rain on my skin and I knew we could be good friends. I wonder if you had the same feeling about me?”

She dips her head sideways in benevolent nod, mindful not to face her crown of antlers toward them.

His expression brightens and softens all at once with relief and joy.

Andromache directs an arched-brow look at her, which Quynh returns unblinkingly. She understands. The secret was Nicolò’s to reveal, had he been given the choice, and in revealing herself today Quynh has reestablished equilibrium between everyone.

“What happened here?” she asks.

Nicolò sobers. “The men were on the ship we came across on. They disembarked with us a few days ago. We thought they had gone on their way, but they were only waiting for us to lower our guard.”

“Nicolò rescued one of the men from drowning when he fell overboard during the night,” Yusuf explains. “He was drunk, so we didn’t think he would remember what had happened. Now I believe one of his friends knew enough to suspect the truth. We thought we were alone here and Nicolò wanted to swim…”

An expression crosses Nicolò’s face. Andromache doesn’t know him well enough yet to translate it. Yusuf, however, does and takes Nicolò’s closest hand in his. They share a look that relaxes the line of Nicolò’s shoulders, which seems to satisfy Yusuf.

Turning back to Andromache, he continues, “They took me by surprise while Nicolò was swimming. When he surfaced…”

“They were ready,” Andromache finishes.

“Yes,” Nicolò says, voice tight.

Andromache nods decisively and gets to her feet. “We should get moving. We’re out in the open here and the shoreline doesn’t provide much coverage. All it would take is anyone coming up over the rocks like we did. Quynh.”

With a regretful sigh, as she doesn’t often inhabit her dragon form, Quynh stands and stretches her long body. As her dragon-self slips away Andy shrugs off her coat and lends it to Quynh until they can retrieve their packs from where they dropped them on the rocks. Quynh covers herself and smiles brilliantly at Andromache.

“Is it too soon to say I like them?” she asks in her first language, discretionary due to their proximity to the men.

Andromache shakes her head fondly and responds in kind, “I think you’ve liked them long before we met them.”

“I know you like them, too. You’re already being protective.”

She lets a hint of a smile curve her lips before she turns away. “I’m going to get our things.”

* * *

Andromache came from nothing and fights for everything. She doesn’t remember her mother’s face. She lost track of her age a millennium ago. She can recount more names of dead cultures than living ones. She had a hand in destroying a few. She wrested power from the hungry grip of ancient warlords and given it to the helpless.

Even among a sea of warriors, armies, and rebels, she has always been alone. Until Quynh.

And then Lykon.

Now, Yusuf and Nicolò.

She watches them from her perched position on top of a rock formation, a couple dozen paces from their campfire. Yusuf breaks up a handful of herbs over their stew pot, grinning as he listens to Quynh dramatically recant a story from their time in Greece. Nicolò gives her his undivided attention, eyes glittering with amusement, arms hooked around his knees. Quynh’s hands float through the air in demonstration, a sharp and mischievous grin playing over her lips.

Andromache imagines this—them—for another decade, another century. Five. A thousand years more. Maybe, in time, they will find more immortals. She tries to imagine a family like that. Not just two people, or three, or four, but six. Ten. Dozens. A tribe.

Her tribe.

Maybe, in time, things will end. Maybe she will live long enough to feel old and maybe she won’t mind the ending of it all that much.

That is for the future. Andromache lives now. Quynh and Yusuf and Nicolò live now. She won’t let a thing like _the future_ get in her way of this. The trick is never slowing down.

She wants more nights of Quynh regaling them with stories. More afternoons spent teasing Yusuf about his profound desirability among local women seeking a husband, and more of Nicolò shadowing him through the market with a smug air about himself. More of those rare, fortuitous sunny days spent at an unpopulated lake with Quynh racing Nicolò from one end to the other. More evenings curled up in pairs, brushing Quynh’s long hair while Yusuf sketches on a sheaf of paper with charcoal and Nicolò dedicates time to memorizing a transcribed text.

She wants days and days and days of traveling with them at her back and Quynh at her side. She wants her life to be nothing but filled with them.

“Andromache,” Quynh whispers.

The woman she loves stands before her, watching her with a small measure of concern.

Andromache reaches out and catches Quynh by the hand, pulls her close. She studies her face for a quiet moment, watching Quynh’s expression morph to one of amused puzzlement.

“What are you thinking?” Quynh asks.

She tugs Quynh closer, into an unhurried kiss, and when they finally part Andromache says, “I’m thinking about how lucky I am to have you. And them,” she adds, looking over Quynh’s shoulder.

Yusuf raises a wide spoon to Nicolò’s lips for tasting and then at the last moment flicks it upward to the end of his nose. Nicolò recoils with a shocked scowl, to which Yusuf laughs brightly. He coaxes Nicolò closer and wipes the splash of stew from his nose with the flat of his fingers, chuckling still. He kisses him in apology and he lets Nicolò sip from the spoon without interference.

“I never thought something like this would be possible,” she continues, returning her attention to Quynh. “Never before Lykon and definitely not again after him.”

Quynh leans into her, slipping an arm around her back in a partial embrace. “I miss him still.”

“I do, too.” Andromache wraps both of her arms around her and pulls her in. Quynh rests her head on Andromache’s shoulder and sighs. “I’m glad to have them,” she says.

“You’re welcome,” Quynh answers with a self-satisfied smile in her voice.

Andromache laughs. “I’m grateful for you,” she adds more seriously.

She knows what her life would have been like without Quynh these last two thousand years and she has no desire to ever return to it. Still, she must acknowledge that eventually one of them will die before the other. It’s a hard thing to admit, a black storm on the horizon, but she won’t waste her time fearing it.

She has never met a storm she couldn’t endure.

Quynh lifts her head and looks at her with starlight shining in her dark eyes. It reminds Andromache of all the times she’s found something old and powerful deep in Quynh’s gaze and hadn’t yet recognized it for the dragon’s soul within her. Now, she knows it as love.

“My true life began when I found you in my dreams,” Quynh says softly. She lifts Andromache’s hands and presses her lips to the backs of her fingers. “You will always have my love.” She squeezes Andromache’s fingers and smiles.

Andromache smiles back, feeling her words burning bright in her chest.

Yusuf calls to them, then, informing them that supper is ready. Quynh keeps hold of Andromache’s hand as they return to their campfire, relinquishing her to accept a bowl from Nicolò. They sit around the fire together and eat and Andromache looks around the circle of them and feels the fullness in her chest push out her breath.

There aren’t words or measurement for the things she has seen and lived through in her long life and none of it can compare to the magnitude of what she feels for the three people gathered around her.

Family, at last. Family, again.

She will cherish each day with them no matter how long she lives and maybe, one day, she will dream of others.

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who is curious:
> 
> 1) Quynh's family line being descended from a dragon and a goddess is a nod toward the origin myth of the Kinh people, who settled in the place that was eventually named Vietnam. 
> 
> 2) Gastrin is, if my research is correct, a precursor to Andy's beloved baklava--which has mysterious origins anyway. The information I found indicated that baklava as it is known today wouldn't have been formally created for another couple centuries. And apparently that is a detail I care about. XD
> 
> 3) Helike is an actual sunken city in Greece. In 373 BC, a tsunami completely submerged the city in one night. Purportedly, the city could still be seen from the surface for another 150 years, but it was eventually covered over and its location was lost....until researchers were able to confirm its location over the last 20 years. And, yes, at the time of the catastrophe it was believed that Poseidon sank the city because Helike inhabitants refused to give their statue of Poseidon to visiting Ionian dignitaries, whom they may or may not have murdered.
> 
> More to come!


End file.
